The tragic history of this week of mourning gets worse

We grieve over the senseless carnage of the Boston Marathon bombings Monday. Now, April 15, 2013, will join the list of dates of tragedies that have scarred the nation throughout our history.

Wednesday, April 17, was added to the list when the explosion of the fertilizer plant in West, Texas, took more lives and injured scores.

Throughout the years, this week has held horror and sorrow for our citizens.

April 15, 1865: President Abraham Lincoln became the first U.S. president to be assassinated.

April 15, 1912: After striking an iceberg the night before, the unsinkable Titanic went down in the Atlantic Ocean, taking the lives of 1,514 of the 2,224 passengers on board.

April 16, 1947: A ship loaded with ammonium nitrate docked at the Port of Texas City, Texas, and erupted in flames, causing a mass explosion that killed almost 600 people. It was the worst industrial accident in U.S. history.

April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 and injured 17 on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., before committing suicide.

April 18, 1880: Missouri was ravaged by tornadoes that killed 151 statewide, including 99 in the town of Marshfield.

April 18, 1906: The San Francisco earthquake devastated the city, causing an estimated 3,000 deaths from the magnitude 8.0 tremor and the resultant fires.

April 18, 1983: A suicide bomber destroyed the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, killing 63, including 17 Americans, and wounding about 120 others.

April 19, 1775: The “shot heard ’round the word” was fired at Lexington, Mass., beginning the American Revolution.

April 19, 1861: The first blood of the Civil War was shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacked troops from Massachusetts who were heading to Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.

April 19, 1993: After a siege of nearly two months, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms staged an assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, leaving four ATF agents dead and 15 wounded. Six Branch Davidians were killed and several more were injured, including David Koresh, the cult’s founder and leader. After a fire started, igniting explosions, Koresh and at least 80 of his followers, including 22 children, were dead.

April 19, 1995: Timothy McVeigh used a truck bomb to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., killing 168 people, including 19 children who were in a day care. More than 800 were injured. It remains the most deadly domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

April 20, 1999: Teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher and wounded 21 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., before killing themselves.